Midnight Mystery: 4 (Winnie the Horse Gentler) (6 page)

Barker bounded over to them, and he and Chico ran through their greeting routine. I’m good at telling a laugh
at
from a laugh
with.
The Spidells laughed
at
Barker.

The show went on, but the Spidells left before the second act.

When Midnight Mystery galloped out, I stood up and applauded. The tricks went well. Midnight seemed skittish, but nothing that would keep Ramon from doing his cossack act. I couldn’t wait.

“And now,” shouted the ringmaster, a.k.a. Colonel Coolidge, “we will give our performers a short break while we take a brief intermission!”

Shouts rang out for “Popcorn!” “Peanuts!” “Cotton candy!”

“I want that!” William screamed as a girl flashed a laser light at us in a strong, white beam.

Mrs. Barker kept calm. “I don’t think we’ll buy anything until you can ask nicely, William.”

After a while the Colonel strode to center ring. “Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome back to Colonel Coolidge’s Traveling Circus!”

A tall man sat in front of me. I had to peer around his bushy red hair to see.

Red hair! It was the same guy who’d sat in front of us the night before! And again he was loaded down with popcorn in one hand and a laser light in the other.

The audience loved Barker’s act. Colonel Coolidge added a couple of joking asides to the crowd, like “This dog is so lazy, he only chases parked cars!”

It was the first resemblance I’d seen between Catman’s great-granddad and his dad. Bart Coolidge owns Smart Bart’s Used Cars, and he has a million stupid car jokes.

When the ringmaster asked the audience to name tricks for Barker’s “strays,” several people hollered out. But again the red-haired guy in front of us shouted the loudest: “Jump through your arms!”

“Catman,” I whispered, “something’s not right about that guy. I just can’t put my finger on it. . . .”

Then I got it. “He’s a clown!” I shouted, pointing at the red head of Jimmy Green Dinglehopper.

“Is he?” Mrs. Barker asked. “Oh, I see.”

Matthew reached up and pulled the man’s hair. “Where’s the rest of your clown costume?” he demanded.

Dinglehopper snarled over his shoulder. “Don’t bug me, kid!”

Down in the ring, Chico jumped through Barker’s arms, and the crowd cheered. If Jimmy Green wanted to wreck Barker’s act, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

The rest of the show went smoothly, and finally, the moment I’d waited for arrived.

“And now . . . ,” bellowed the ringmaster, “. . . the Russian Cossack, Ramon, and his magnificent Midnight Mystery!”

When the music blared, Ramon and Midnight charged the arena. They could have been a vision—the powerful, black stallion in a flat saddle and silver armor, Ramon in a gray Russian soldier’s uniform, with high black boots and fur cap. The Clyde Beatty Cole Brothers Circus would be crazy not to sign them up on the spot.

While Midnight galloped around the ring, Ramon vaulted off and on his horse, then swung to the side, seeming to hold on with one arm. The crowd gasped as he dangled off Midnight’s rump, stood on his back, and slid under his belly.

In that instant, I saw a flash cross Midnight’s face. The horse sprang from the ground as if he’d been bitten by a rattlesnake. Ramon scrambled back into the saddle as Midnight’s hooves pawed the air. The stallion reared so high, so long, I was sure he’d fall over backwards, crushing Ramon.

Help them!
I prayed, wishing I had words like Lizzy’s. She’d have known exactly what to say.

Then I saw Ramon reach one hand to Midnight’s neck and stroke him under the mane.

Yes! Calm him. Get him down!

Midnight’s hooves dropped to the ground. Ramon lowered the stallion’s head, and Midnight burst into a canter. Ramon made him circle, controlling the power. He’d done it!

“Let’s have a big round of applause for Ramon and Midnight Mystery!” shouted the Colonel.

The crowd applauded, but I think even they knew the stallion’s behavior hadn’t been part of the act.

“There!” William shouted.
“That
light! I want one like that man has!” He squirmed off his mother’s lap and wriggled next to Dinglehopper’s laser light.

I tried to remember the instant before Midnight reared. I’d seen a flash! A laser beam!

“You!” I cried, jumping to my feet and grabbing the laser light out of Jimmy Green Dinglehopper’s hand.
“You
scared Midnight on purpose!”

My heart pounded like a herd of stampeding Mustangs as I stared from the laser light back to Jimmy Green Dinglehopper’s bright red hair. “How could you!” I ached for Midnight, feeling his terror.

Catman stepped beside me. “Chill, Winnie.” He slipped the flashlight out of my hand and gave it back to Dinglehopper. “Sorry, man.”

“What—?” I started.

But Catman was forcefully guiding me down the bleachers and outside the tent.

“Catman! You don’t understand! I saw a light flash in Midnight’s eyes right before he reared! Your clown had a laser light!”

“So did lots of cats.”

“Listen to me, Catman!” I felt like a detective trying to wrap my brain around the clues. “Remember how Dinglehopper shouted out the hardest tricks for Barker’s dogs?”

Catman raised his eyebrows at me. “Part of the act, Winnie.”

That was part of the act?
I thought about it. Of course it was! I felt like an idiot.

I tried to cover. “Well . . . sure . . . of course. But you have to admit he doesn’t want the circus to look good when he’s not star clown! Remember how he tried to get you to share Barker’s spot? Even Mrs. Barker said he wasn’t happy about Barker taking over. I think he shined that light in Midnight’s eyes on purpose. I don’t know why he’s picking on Ramon’s act, but—”

“I’m on it,” Catman announced quietly.

I frowned up at him. “You’re on it?” Did Catman think
he
was a detective now? I took a deep breath to keep from exploding. “Look . . . Dinglehopper had the flashlight.” I thought about last night.
“And
Dinglehopper could have put that burr under Midnight’s saddle!”

“Or not,” Catman said simply.

Note to self: Catman Coolidge can be the most frustrating human on earth.
And that’s saying something.

By the time we left the circus, the wind had kicked up, along with a drizzling rain, and slapped wet leaves against the Barker bus windshield.

I thanked the Barkers for the ride and got out alone in front of my house. A pale light glowed from the front window. I dreaded going in and seeing Dad happily getting his inventions ready for his trip. I didn’t know what to say to him.

When Mom died, neither of us had known what to say to each other. Lizzy had carried all three-way conversations while Dad and I tried to stay out of each other’s way. Things had been getting so much better since we’d settled in Ashland. But now it felt like Dad and I had been thrown backward into the silence.

Instead of running to the house, I headed for the one place I always felt safe. With Nickers. Before I reached the barn, my horse nickered, a low rumbling that rattled my heart.

“Hey, girl.” I wrapped my arms around her neck. Just breathing the same air as Nickers helped. I closed my eyes and listened to the music of rain drumming the roof, bare branches scratching the windows, Towaco shuffling in his stall, and Nelson, my barn cat, purring from Nickers’ hay trough.

Finally I dashed back across the junky yard, dodging raindrops, to my front door. I found Lizzy at the kitchen table, practicing for Power of the Pen, and Dad giving his acceptance speech to the mirror in his bedroom.

After a hot bath, I hollered good night and climbed into bed. Usually I can see the pasture through my bedroom window, but not tonight. Not even a trace of moonlight broke through the dark.

Monday morning Lizzy and I got up early to throw clothes into laundry sacks for Mr. Coolidge to pick up and haul to the haunted castle. I could hear Dad grunting from the living room as he tried to fit a backward bike into a cardboard box.

“I don’t know what’s so great about the back bike. How could it win an invention contest?” I muttered. The bike goes frontward like a regular bike, but you have to pedal backward. Big deal.

Barking sounded from the living room. “It’s just the new bike horn!” Dad shouted. “Think Barker will like it?” The bike he’d be showing off in Chicago really belonged to Barker, or it would on Christmas. Barker’s parents were buying it for him. Dad barked the horn again.

“Barker will love it, Dad!” Lizzy shouted back.

Catman’s bike meowed or sounded like a tornado. I never used my horn, so I had no idea how Dad had rigged it.

Dad dragged the long bike box back to show us. “I made a handle,” he said, carrying the thing by what looked like the top of a picture frame.

Maybe airport security wouldn’t let Dad on with a contraption like that. Maybe they’d send him back home where he belonged.

Dad was so excited I don’t think he even noticed that I was giving him the silent treatment.

Lizzy made up for it. “Don’t worry about anything, Dad! We’ll be fine . . . although I wish you’d talked to Mrs. Barker before you signed us up at the Coolidges.” She shuddered. “But we’ll be just fine! Or even Pat might have let us stay with her—although I guess she wouldn’t have room for us. Oh! And don’t forget to look up Zack when you get to Chicago! I sat next to him in—”

I escaped to the barn, where I fed Towaco and Nickers. As soon as Nickers finished her grain, I led her to the paddock. I had a half hour before school. “Let’s try that bow, girl.”

I used every trick Ramon had shown me—pressure to the halter, holding a handful of oats where I wanted her to lower her head, tickling in a different spot. But nothing worked. Nickers had no desire to bow. Maybe it just wasn’t my day.

“Winnie!” Lizzy’s shout reached the paddock.

I kissed Nickers good-bye and walked to the yard, but I didn’t see my sister until she dropped from the branches of an oak tree. She had a lizard in each hand—Larry, her fence lizard, and one I didn’t recognize. Lizzy had built two homes for her lizard menagerie—one in a tree, and one underground.

“Go tell Dad good-bye!” she commanded.

I trudged inside and found Dad straightening his skinny black tie in the hall mirror. “How do I look, Winnie?”

“Okay.” I gazed at his image in the mirror as if he were a stranger. Tall, dark, probably even handsome, for a parent. I wanted to beg him to please, please not go. To tell him I’d do anything if he just wouldn’t get on that airplane, if he wouldn’t leave, if he’d stay for Mom’s birthday.

But it wouldn’t have done any good. “Bye, Dad.”

Dad turned and hugged me awkwardly.

I let him.

Then I biked to school.